Don't Blame Us
by CryBurnLie
Summary: The world is going insane, its rationality shot down, and monsters have escaped from below (talk about bad timing). However, after seeing their horrendous culture of dancing, someone had to correct them to the ways of song. Impending doom or not. [Chara & Asriel!friends] [OC]
1. Was This Humor Nowadays?

_"-though, I'm surprised we even have that kinda passion still."_

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _ **: I**_ _ **do**_ _ **not own**_ _ **any**_ _ **characters**_ _ **or**_ _ **names**_ _ **of**_ _ **the**_ _ **cast**_ _ **from**_ _ **the**_ _ **game**_ _ **Undertale, it all belongs**_ _ **to**_ _ **Toby**_ _ **Fox. The only thing I own is the AU, and the main character, I guess.**_

 _ **I think I've decided to make this story to be like, small snit-bits**_ _ **of their lives together, but in order. So no monstrously long chapters (maybe). I don't want to get bored of it too fast (I'm like Skikamaru**_ _ **Nara, sometimes things are too troublesome).**_

"Heya." She says.

"Hi." I say back.

The noon sun settles atop the wooden table that I sit at like a sheen of wax. I could tell from the glow of heat on my clothed arm that the rays were determined to scorch some innocent few; the sun, such a spiteful little dot in the distance. But my focus wasn't on the distracting bite of discomfort from the radiated ball of white, instead, on a girl whom I barely recognized and was taking the liberty to speak to me.

There is something really intense about the way she's looking at me. Her eyes are carrying a bright red glow, much like the cherry hue poppy plants held. I suspected contacts, because that's only reasonable. However, their skin was noticeably pale so she could be an albino. You could see the blue tints of her veins under her neck, crawling up through her system as if she had stabbed herself with a poisoned needle.

I found that slightly fascinating, and a little strange.

She didn't say anything for a pause. Which was weird. Then, even weirder, she says "Ya know, we sit next to each other every single day, and yet, I don't even know your name. Isn't that odd?" There's a glint in her eyes, a sudden pulse of candy red against the ruby tone of her irises. I have a sudden thought that maybe those aren't contacts.

"Sure." I tell her, though my mind is more interested in determining which gender they were besides really contemplating her question. The sharp A-line haircut suggests female, but their build and stature are too mixed with wide shoulders and tall stature (well, taller than a regular middle-schooler, I'm assuming, I don't know the specifics), which contrasted against their long, dainty fingers and blatant rosy cheeks. After taking note that concluding my suspicions isn't going to be possible without a personal ask, I let it go without another care.

She grins wider, having been slyly smirking beforehand. It just makes sense that in response I lift up an eyebrow in question of their sanity. Though, maybe I shouldn't. Nowadays, everyone's kinda unhinged. And I'm sure that if I gave a second for every kid I deemed questionable, in the stable regard, I would have negative time left over for myself. If that could ever be a thing.

The girl turns to gaze down the table toward our other classmates. "And these guys too. We sit with each other, and even save each other's spots, but we don't really know each other. Isn't that odd too?" I flick my stare down the row as well, unconsciously following before sharply realizing a little too late my own fear of stares. However, after a quick throb horror, I realize no one was looking, or had heard us. The painful tense on my shoulder's settles as I take my fill of the sight and turn back to stare down onto the glistening table with relief.

I can tell she's grinning again through the cover of my lashes, but that's been a constant occurrence so far, so I don't know If that's mocking my cowardice so I can feel bitter, or perhaps she hadn't noticed and was still stuck on their little society check. Or whatever this was.

Either way, her face doesn't give anything away. The increasingly strange girl continues with a bizarre interest in her voice. "Like, we know small things, like 'who do you wanna be when you grow up', but that's not personal, ya know?" She leans onto the table, her arms mocking my own as she crosses them and taps her filed down fingers. "Every teacher makes us all write down some 'three things' to introduce ourselves to the new class: favorite color, favorite book or movie, favorite quote. But how do we know if they're not lying?"

My eyebrow drops to its partner at the amount of strange wafting from her. I think about leaving as a pause of somewhat dramatic silence falls between us, not so much outside our bubble, everyone seems to be speaking at the same time.

I contemplate giving her an answer, but it seemed like whatever she was saying was rhetorical.

She lifts up a hand and makes a face, tilted and filled with playful confusion. "Why would anyone want to sit together with people that they don't know, huh?" Her stare focuses on my eyes, and I, distracted from her words, flick them away to catch at the windows for a small and stupid breather. It was like the girl was threatening my space.

I decide to speak up, halfway done with their bizarre take on things. "How do you know that none of the kids here don't know each other? Maybe they don't know all of them, their lives and whatever, but there's always someone. And does it really matter where you sit? One table will always be the same amount of plywood as the next." My words are straightforward and my tone dull. A pause and I add, "Why do you even care to ask?" It just made sense, why question something so blatantly obvious?

Her eyes flashed and her obviously fake quizzical look churned into a Cheshire cat's grin, eyes mounted up like moon crescents in amusement. If I was anyone else, I would have been extremely creeped out, but my eyes were captured back by the girl's offbeat personality against a sea of children that all wanted to like someone else. All too willing to dress up the same and join groups to be the same and like the same things. All alike. But their world will soon crash and burn once they learn that companies will never hire for 'followers', but 'leaders'. Whatever that means nowadays.

It's a cruel, deceived world, but a cake can only be made with the ingredients you choose to put in it.

"Because, it just doesn't make sense." She answers finally.

Her words were quick, and truthful enough to keep it away from being strictly foolish. I simply shrugged, arguing futile.

She lifted up her arms to rest her face on her palm, her wide eyes taking in my own, searching and analyzing like I had before. But it felt different, and I was reminded of the stare she had given me before all this crazy talk.

"My name's Chara, what's yours?" Her voice had slipped down from the exuberant spiel and into a casual level, tipping almost into curious tease. The later act startles me into a silence before I give my own name, without my last name as well.

Not that we couldn't figure it out, the teachers would let it slip one day, but it was a matter of respect.

She, strange girl now labeled with an unequal and normal name of 'Chara', presented me a smile, as if she knew what I was thinking and thought it funny. Or perhaps she was making a joke at my name.

When the bell rang above our heads, and the herd of children started to file out, we both got up as one and I was gifted a lazy wave from them. "I'll see you around." She said, her eyes never managing to smile just like her mouth did.

I simply nod, "Yeah." However, I didn't really believe we'd ever talk again, it was simply pleasantries.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though she was being serious with her quick dismissal.

When the next morning hit, and broke open the sky with lavender churned clouds and puffy pink cherries, she had caught me waltzing inside the school doors, slouched against the granite pillars by the entrances. Eyes rounded up in a suspicious smile. I guessed she'd been waiting for me; though, with her bag still shouldered I wondered why she hadn't dropped that off in her class first, then wait. It was near the time for the first warning bell. Perhaps she didn't want to miss me coming in?

The logic of it all had my eyebrow up and active in silent question, but her face only beamed in exuberant delight. From what, I had no clue. We were not friends, barely even considered acquaintances.

Thankfully, she kept her limb to herself, not deciding to hook them in my own like some cliche buddy-buddy friend thing. Instead, she stuck herself by my side, hands occupied with holding onto the straps than trying to connect our bodies like I feared. It was rational enough, she seemed like the person who was quite hands on. Though, that could just be my fevered fear making assumptions.

"Heya." She says, flashing her smirk like a shark, repeating our first words like some joke. I suppose it was.

"Hi." I respond, not feeling like using the energy to ask why bother with me. Perhaps it has something to do with yesterday's talk. Maybe she was aiming to get to know everyone, or even worse, attempting to figure out 'who was lying'. A spy, or a concerned classmate? Judging from the maniacal grin, it seemed to dip into the former...

"Who's your AVID teacher?" Chara speaks up from my side, facing front to wade through the crowd of shorter students, but her eyes - illuminating crimson with a charge of electricity - never leave the side of my face.

I falter a step, breath caught in my throat. The feeling of being trapped leaves as quickly as it comes and I shrug in response. "Mr. Kresner, you?" I ask, simply being polite. My pace is as slow as the time lets me; there is enough to transverse to class, and still be on role for perfect attendance, for a quick chat in the hall.

Her eyes finally leave my face to smirk at the tops of the heads passing and shuffling around us. "Miss Evelyn. She's pretty nice." I hum in acknowledgment, I already know of the unmarried woman's empathetic and caring personality. At times, it's incredibly jarring. The school is mostly filled with drone-like men and women, biases so far into the school system and up their asses they speak their opinions openly and expect us to not only acknowledge them, but accept it as true.

The word doesn't want your opinion, they want you to agree.

That's what makes Ms. Evelyn so distinct against the system. Like an orange sheet of paper against a blue coated wall. I wonder if the students who like her and don't is split fifty-fifty, or if the teachers give her a hard time because of her passive nature. I wonder if she's been used.

The Societies are a vicious group, in debate and not. The only group of the Three Factions that has their fingers dug so deep into the school system you wouldn't know when it had begun in the first place. I theorize it had started when they had cut off other religious aspects to the creation of the planet and galaxy and the like, but perhaps it had started before then, when guns and stuff weren't allowed into school anymore. It's a thought to pass the time, but not a very interesting subject to hang on.

It's old news, so whatever.

"Is that your class up there?" Her voice breaks into my mind and my gaze focuses back, taking note of the flip signs of the classroom numbers above each of the doors, a sheen of dark brown behind white numbers. The answer was obvious. We have both been going here for almost three years, we know these halls like our own houses. If the recent blackout was anything to go by (the after school kids had no trouble maneuvering around in the late afternoon, and weren't fazed by the pitch black of the basement to turn on the backup lights on. Hearty kids, this generation).

"Yeah." I answer curtly, answering the obvious question anyway, though perhaps a bit too slowly. My response was awkwardly near the social time limit of 'did you hear me?'.

She chuckles faintly, somehow undisturbed by my outright slow reaction. Doesn't she think that's offensive? That maybe I'm not listening to her? How is she so unruffled by my indifference?

Does she know that I'm not _trying_ to ignore her, but just caught up in thinking?

I'm wondering if my hypothesis on the 'spy' theory is correct. . .

We stop before the door, a secure and heavy metal shield that automatically locks when shut, it's propped open for the morning. The bright eyed child gives me a wave, not too unlike the one she gave yesterday - lazy but direct with a quick flick of the wrist.

She smiles, it doesn't reach her eyes.

"Talk to you later at lunch." She says.

"Sure." I answer, because I noticed it wasn't a question.


	2. Yellow Journalism

_"-if everyone says it's true, you also will start to think so, whether or not it truly is."_

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _ **: I**_ _ **do**_ _ **not own**_ _ **any**_ _ **characters**_ _ **or**_ _ **names**_ _ **of**_ _ **the**_ _ **cast**_ _ **from**_ _ **the**_ _ **game**_ _ **Undertale, it all belongs**_ _ **to**_ _ **Toby**_ _ **Fox. The only thing I own is the AU, and the main character, I guess.**_

A hue of tangerine and hot pink crowd my sight as I look up into the sky, hands occupied with clutching onto the swing's supports as I gently move back and forth. There's a light spring breeze flowing underneath my legs, catching the unprotected skin above my ankles and through the gap in my pant legs. It's not chilly yet, but getting late. Late enough to make even the most stoic of parents fidget at their children's absences. I wonder when we'll leave.

But I don't move to ask the individual at my side, whom was swinging along with me - except more enthusiastically. We had been chatting between breaks of silence, like she needed a breather between subjects. It was a little weird, though I suppose I wouldn't want to talk that much either. I have a sudden thought that maybe she's pausing for me, waiting for me to gain my strength again, but I don't think it's as selfless as I think it is. She looks as though she needs it just as much as me, except I can't really tell from her smiling pokerface. Is every moment such great joy to her? Or perhaps she's lost the feeling already and is simply moving on everyday. Like anyone else in this generation.

"Why do you think the world is as it is?" Her voice pops back up, and by the sound of it she's not in a hurry to leave anytime soon. Which I don't mind so much anymore. It's only been a week, and nothing's really changed since that first day of really seeing each other. We've just been hanging out. At the park (where we are now, though there are others in the city area), the school playground, and kinda just been 'around' each other. It's honestly still jarring to see her wait for me everyday, especially when she goes on and talks for the both of us and is okay with that.

She's strange, perhaps even the definition of strange (unusual, extraordinary, or curious; odd; queer), but I haven't left yet.

Maybe it's because I'm a pushover internally.

With a puzzled stare sent over her way, I finally pipe up. Surely, the answer is obvious. "People took their opinions too far, expected too much, and decided to fight over them without respect for the listener." I don't say all that I want, but I've never been one to speak in long lengths at one time anyway.

She looks amused, but I couldn't understand why. "You make it sound like you're against the Socials' point of view. Are you?" Her question sounded innocent, but I paused, wondering if this was some kind of trap. If 'Chara' really was a spy and looking for people that were against their Faction's beliefs, cutting off the 'weeds' of the new generation to keep their gardens 'pure' and of one mind. If I answer wrong, there's a high probability that I could die, along with my family.

Even with the warnings of answering in her favor in my head, I don't say a thing, instead locked into a silence that, unsurprisingly, makes her laugh. Her head knocked back and eyes closed in mirth for a quick moment. It's gone as fast as it came, but I'm still staring as she begins to calm down with a trail of chuckles.

"You don't have to be so uptight, I'm not gonna tell on ya. Even if you did, I'm sure someone else in the past had you figured out already. If they wanted to do somethin' about it, they'da done it already." She snickers at the thought, I don't find it nearly as funny.

My brows furrow in annoyance at her blatant reading of me, and slow down on the swings like I want to leave, but I let it go just as easily. There was no point in holding grudges. "I'm not against them, or for them, it doesn't matter what they do. They'll eventually fall into the grave they've dug for themselves without anyone's help." It was my opinion, and the thought didn't sit right in my chest. I wasn't used to speaking those outloud.

Chara hums, now looking away just as I had to stare off into the shadowed park. My eyes lay on the mowed section of the grass mindlessly. "So you don't like them." She states, and I wonder if she even heard me.

Then, I think about how _I_ really don't know how I feel about it, and I think that I may not even know what my opinion is. "...I don't know. I just think they won't be a problem for much longer." I answer finally, and I'm surprised that it doesn't sound as wrong. Do I actually believe this nonsense? The Societies leaving? Never. Subdued? ...Maybe, but not in my lifetime.

She makes a huff of delight. "That's an interesting opinion," Is all she says to that, and I find it fitting for someone like her.

Launching off her swing, she lands some feet ahead on the bark chipped floor of the playground. As she gazes up at the sky I wait, stranded on the swingset, wondering if she is debating calling this 'hangout' to an close like she always does. Seeing as she was the one that set up everything, and came and spoke to me first, she can take the responsibility. ( _Or some other better reason_ ).

She does eventually, with a dramatic pause (she's so very dramatic), and I get up to leave with a quick 'okay', nonchalant and unconcerned.

She says "Bye, catch you tomorrow."

I answer "Sure." Because I don't doubt she will.

When I hobble down the stairs the next morning, it's to my parents crowing the radio, huddled and hunched over whispering to each other. A worried hand is pressed to my mother's chapped mouth, my father's sturdy arm is holding the back of her waist like she may collapse, or needs the reassurance that he's still here. Usually, they are out of the house already. Mom has teaching and dad's a woodworker, specifically cabinetry, and because of the early rise jobs, they get to come back early in the afternoon. Unless they are late to arrive.

My interest has peaked.

"What's on the news?" I ask, strolling over to their assemblage. My presence was obviously a surprise to them, and had them break away and get moving. I guessed they hadn't noticed the time until I, the one who didn't see them in the morning unless I got up earlier, came into the room.

My mom rushed past me, giving me a loving pat on the head and a flash of her ambidextrous hands. 'New species discovered, talk to your pa about it' was what she signed before moving to grab at her car keys.

I raised a brow in question, now directed towards my father, who was grabbing onto his lunchbox, an insulated blue box with most likely a salad, an apple, water, and probably some hearty sandwich. "New species? Is it aquatic?" I ask up to him, knowing that humans haven't discovered all of the ocean yet, so I was assuming it was water based. I wondered how long it would take to get it in the pet market.

He shook his head as he walk around me, now also headed towards the door, his truck had already been started. "Yes and no, it's monsters." When he steps out the door with a curt 'bye' I pause in the doorway and watch them go, more confused than before.

 _'Monsters?'_

"You heard about it, right? I'm sure it was on all channels this morning." Chara is at my side and spouting off already, and I'm surprised it's about what my parent's had been talking about. Kind of. They rushed off pretty quickly.

I couldn't stop my own interest. "What's this all about?"

She doesn't seem peeved that I wasn't informed, actually, she's chuckling like usual. Maybe she's a gossiper internally. I hope not, those people are seriously bothersome.

"Monsters. It's a new species that have come out from within Mt. Ebbott." I immediately recognise the mountain name - you would too if you lived right beside its slope. She takes a gander around while we talk, and once I follow her gaze I notice that there is more noise in the halls, and in general, than usual. Was everyone talking about this? She continues with a smile, "The news said that there were so many different types of the species, like humanoid fish, goat people, slime families, bird people, it's like someone poured that green radiated stuff from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the mountain. Except there are types of species that aren't even from the mountain biome." Chara looks pleased that she remembered it all, or it's something else. Like excitement.

I raise a brow, that doesn't sound real at all. I sigh, interest flung out the window. "That sounds like a pile of horseshit." The news has always been known to falsify stories, yellow journalism is what that's called. A fabrication and unrefined exaggeration of a story. Maybe there _is_ a new species, but most likely not to this extent. I'm just surprised Chara fell for this scam. Then again, she doesn't look like the one to care about believing supernatural things. She probably believes in the Greek Gods and all that voodoo crap too.

She guffaws, apparently thinking my fierce opinion hilarious. "Yeah? It does doesn't it? Heh, too bad they don't have any pictures yet, then maybe it would be harder evidence." I roll my eyes at the implication.

"Photoshop." Was all I said, continuing down the tiled hallway like I always do. As the murmuring continued with sounds of childish 'awes' and 'woahs' I began to realize today was not going to be pleasant.

The school was filled with brainwashed idiots.

Chara chuckled at my side, either at my misery, or my blunt shot-down. In any aspect, it could very well be both. "Well, either way, I'm sure there will be more on the telly about it when we get released from school. Better yet, the teachers will talk about it in class."

I release a sigh and hoped the older individuals weren't in on this too. Though, with these kinds of teachers, they'll probably be talking about accepting the new species, pulling some type of speech through their asses and attempting to look respectful.

I just hope this blows over soon. I understand that the world is in a bored state on the tip of an iceberg called 'communication issues & other things', but instantly believing an obvious hoax is incredibly concerning. They should all find a better way to use some extra time than this.

My body is snug between my parents on the couch, a soft wool blanket with it's cotton open on one side to capture the heat. I'm bunched up like a cocoon as the T.V lights up the room in a brilliant blue glow, a soft orange lamp behind to save our eyes from the contrast of dark and light. The movie is soft in volume, not at all like we usually do with larger than large speakers, but we were all tired, and there was no reason to get pumped up at night when work and school was the next day. It's a serine family moment like it is during the day.

I clench my toes as the main character and an evil grunt clash, rolling down on top of each other on the ground and fighting over to kill with the only weapon at hand: a knife. I watch as the main struggles, blade over the attacker's heart. Their muscles fight for dominance; the main takes the chance to lift up his free hand to bang it against the top of the handle, which thrusts the tip of the blade into the attacker's chest. There is a flinch from him, the man who was set up to do it, a man who was innocent but brainwashed into following a group of crime, a flinch of shock and pain.

 _It wasn't his fault_ , I think, as the main does it again, now plunging the whole knife through their chest. _He was forced, his loved ones on the line, a life he wasn't able to have,_ I watch the man tremble, hands shaking like a seizure near the knife handle, like he couldn't believe it had happened, like he thinks he can just pull it out and get up again. I watch the main character - an unfeeling man that had been wronged (it's always _wronged_ ) - walk away, not a glance back, swiping a spare gun that had been discarded on the ground, now going after more men in black (it's always men in black). I watch the man on the ground die until the camera is forced away from the scene to move along with the main.

I get that it's just a movie. I know that the man who died on screen is alive and is probably getting up to have some donuts near the back of the studio. I understand that the man playing the main character, the character grudge-filled and sorrowful, is not a bad person, or hate filled.

But it's the look my parents have when they watch it. Unfeeling at the ruthless, unfeeling, death scene (no matter how fake, it looked real, and I could almost _feel_ the tension) and silent as the man with an agenda goes on and on, more and more collection of blood on their hands like some achievement.

At times like these, when there is no one to fake with, when you believe you're safe and secure in a home and with family who you believe wont ever judge you; sometimes I can see who they really are.

And it's an outline of something terrifying.

Feeling done with the movie not twenty five minutes in, I squirm out of the comfort of the couch, whispering an excuse of exhaustion, and leave after a pat on the head and curt but understood 'good night', dragging the blanket along with me.

I don't make it around the couch when the commercials come on, showcasing a live feed of news near the mountain. I watch with wide, gaping eyes as some type of species I've never seen before appears before the screen, and is... _speaking_ ; it's a rumble of words. Their red, crimson eyes are surrounded by white fur, shimmering yellow from the set up camera lights in the area. The voice says something about being 'King of the Underground', something about an 'ambassador' - there is a human child on screen and I snort without meaning to. Something about 'coming in peace,' and 'wanting to negotiate for the harmony of both species.'

I only have one moment of allowed disbelief to keep believing that this is all fake, until I realize that this is not a joke. I can see it from my parents' faces, wholly enraptured in the T.V now more than before. There is no sneaking smile or glance to each other to indicate a knowing 'in' on a joke. There is none of that.

 _This is real_ , I think, mind blank and dazed, clutching the blanket around me tighter, like that could do anything. I felt like laughing, at one startling moment.

 _Well, I suppose Chara got her evidence, now didn't she?_


	3. Realizing Nothing Will Be the Same

_"-or maybe it will. Some people are afraid of change, and perhaps they will fight for it. A normality, whether or not someone will be in the way."_

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or names of the cast from the game Undertale, it all belongs to Toby Fox. The only thing I own is the AU, and the main character, I guess.

A.N: If you all haven't guessed already. My take on Chara is an AU one. She is not silent and internally caring about people and worrying about if she had hurt someone with her actions (b4 genocide), but insane and apathetic. This will show in this chapter, and I hope during the one's you've already read. Chara is not like the one you see in the game, maybe a bit alike, but still different. That is because her background of never falling into the Underground hadn't changed who she initially was like. (And also b/c of this World AU). So please note that Chara is not _exactly_ 'OOC', but simply part of an AU.

There is no usual peace of mind when I look up to see the beauty of the early morning colors, a brilliant burst of gold bananas and mello blueberries, a bakery of pancakes from the hue of the fragments of light and water crystals. There is something different flowing around the air, not the puff of pollen or the silky flutter of flowers in the gentle breeze, _daffodils dancing and sweat peas swaying_ ; but an aura, a quaking, shattering, feeling that rises from the ground like an earthquake. It's enormous, the eruption and realization. My feet tremble as I stroll down the still and quiet sidewalk.

A dog barks in the distance, voices are picked up by the wind, a murmur too faint for faraways ears. I can feel the twitch in my eyes, skittering about like a ghost could pop up, and for one insane moment I think that could happen because there is a new species and _who knows what kinds of monsters there are?_

I don't notice wandering inside of the school until I'm snapped out of my autopilot by a red eyed child. I'm frozen by the gaze for a moment, thinking back to last night and a different pair of crimson eyes so _large_ and _seeing_ that I found myself captivated by the screen, that is, until my mother had ushered me out of the room for bed, and a private adult conversation.

I wonder what they had talked about as I stand there staring at my friend who had not said anything but grinned like she knew, a fox smile. _Knew what? What was always so funny? I don't understand._

The last thought was not directed towards her smile.

"Monsters are real." Is what she says for her first words of the day. I find myself brought into a burst of internal rage.

"So?" My voice is pinched and blatantly annoyed, I could feel a sour frown lining my mouth. I think back to times when I used to be expressionless, irking everyone in the vicinity who tried to decipher my entombed emotions. Teachers tried, students were the first (nosey bunch of brats), and my parents had given up. There was peace in protecting who you were, and security in letting everything wash off you, like water on a duck.

It was comforting, and at this moment I wished I wasn't so open as to let Chara, whose red eyes could pierce through me and laugh at it, see into everything that bothered me.

Chara tilts her head at me as I continue towards my class, her brown and abused bag is not hanging from her shoulders this morning. "Isn't it exciting?"

A dry glance is sent her way fully explaining how I did _not_ think it was 'exciting.'

She chuckles at the look, or cackles. "Don't tell me you're afraid of them?" Where she had come up with that, I didn't know. It was almost like she pulled thoughts and figures from the open air. Grasping onto a particularly interesting string and tugging it down on a whim, like searching for a good joke on the internet. Red strings in a box of plastic and wire.

My brows furrow in annoyance. "No." It's an obvious lie, and I feel like a child for denying the logistics of being afraid of the unknown.

I'm more annoyed with myself than her as she smiles at that. Surprisingly, she lets it go. I take note that this is not the first time she has let one of my _less than mature_ moments go without thought. (There is an instance, one small, miniature, pulse of something warm in my chest before it's smothered by reality). "There'll be more news about it all, but this morning they were talking about keeping them in one place for a time. Did you listen this morning?" She rattles, and no, I had not been listening. I was too out of it, too caught up in what I should do to stay in one mind. What to do.

In all sense, that plan of action isn't as surprising. If there was a new species, or thing to be discovered, it would be held away from people to be rationalized. For the safety of the people.

I wonder for how long the monsters have been 'underground', and if we have any records in the library on them. How far back the legends will go. How old the tales will be.

"They have a King, isn't that cool? And I think there was a queen too, but she didn't want to have the title of it. Did you see the ambassador? It's just some cute lil tyke maybe a year younger than us." I halfheartedly listen and eye the numbers above each of the passing doors, urging them to go up faster so I can go to class and forget all of this. "They have a son, the Queen and King, a little goat prince named Asriel. The King's name is Asgore and the Queen is Toriel, they even have last names - interesting, right? - the Dreemurr family. Talk about cliche."

I turn to face her with a twitching eyebrow. "Why do you care to remember all that?"

She pauses in her rant, lips sinking closed and lifting in the corners. I watch in apprehensive silence as it churns into a carefully polished smile, coated in a cold poisoned passion. It's one of the more unnerving moments I've had with her, realizing that not only is the world changing, but this girl, before even that, was something otherworldly all by herself. A god playing human. An interest in things below herself, unwary of needed cautions by normal people. Daring, open and blatant, apathetic but attentive. She's so like this generation of unempathetic children that you might mistake her something normal, just another kid tainted by the silent war of the Three Factions.

 _But she's not_. Not _normal_. And she's caught me in a net that is unfamiliar and taunt, waiting for me to struggle so that the ropes tighten in my confusion and break the air out of my lunges. There is no room for struggling.

The imagery shocks me into silence, but I don't dare say anything. She's watching. (she knows things).

"Because one day they'll be integrating with us, and it would be rude to not know even their names." She says it like she believes this, and maybe one day this could happen, sure. The monsters won't always be kept away and yeah, they'll come and join the rest of the world.

 _But I don't think that's her real answer._

It's only half a month later and a different kind of news is hitting the internet and television.

 _Magic_.

The power to create balls of fire on a whim, mold shields that sing and pulse with electricity, a blue magic that only works if something is moving, and an orange magic that does the opposite. Green shimmering foods that heal cuts instantaneously and are so pure that they do not produce waste _of any kind_.

It is too much, too fast. Everything that I know, that was normal and usual - _predictable_ \- will soon not be. Anything is possible, and with this new species - monsters - there is a new world being formed.

Or there would be, if this world was not so alike me.

There are whispers in the streets, in the school, that no one can hear under the enthusiastic shouting of those still stuck in wonder. They are hidden, hunched together in small groups speaking to each other. Lips curled, snarling, eyes narrowed into quiet fury and passionate disgust at those whom are not them. I can see their outline at times, when I pause and cloak my eyes, hiding in plain sight to watch them flash their true selves, sometimes a flicker of a shadowed look, a shift in their clenched hands, something small.

They won't come out yet, not into the light of the excitement. Not now. But I can feel the tension, the wait for some order or sign, waiting to pounce.

I wonder who they are (I have a guess on who). I wonder what they are waiting for (I have a theory on what).

Every now and then, I catch Chara giving me this smirk (it is different than playful, and different than teasing) when we are around a group of silence 'thems', and somehow I know that she knows of _them_ too.

I wonder what she will do, or more possibly, what she won't do, when the time comes. Whenever the time it, and whatever it is. (It is something, and she knows things).

Some weeks later, the concept of a Soul is released into the news.

I ponder, like some joke, what my Soul looks like, and if it is as dull as my personality.


	4. Get It Over With

Get It Over With

\- Chpt 4 -

" _My favorite quote is rather unsurprising and bland: 'Go with the flow.' It's a phrase for procrastinators and children that hate responsibility. Something that gives those that sweat constantly with stress to find a sort of meshed peace for the moment. Also rather unsurprisingly, it is all I can think of to keep my head above the waves of confusion and the ferocious pull from a metaphoric rope snarled around my waist, pulled by a person whom is not a friend, but not a no one._

" _Let me just be done with this."  
_  
 **==========================================================**

 **Disclaimer** **: I do not own any characters or names of the cast from the game Undertale, it all belongs to Toby Fox. The only thing I own is the AU, and the main character, I guess.**

 **A.N** **: If you all haven't guessed already. My take on Chara is an AU one. She is not silent and internally caring about people and worrying about if she had hurt someone with her actions (b4 genocide), but insane and apathetic. This will show in this chapter, and I hope during the one's you've already read. Chara is not like the one you see in the game, maybe a bit alike, but still different. That is because her background of never falling into the Underground hadn't changed who she initially was like. (And also b/c of this World AU). So please note that Chara is not exactly 'OOC', but simply part of an AU.**

 **==========================================================**

I feel the furrow in my brows and the dull narrow of my eyes. I am unamused and it clearly shows.

The problematic child snickers, well versed in my ways. Morning light showers through the floor windows of the school with jarring warm hues of the color spectrum, turning the white tiles below our feet to a strong shine of orange and gold. Our bodies are blocking the flow of students in the hallways, but no one says anything, or gives us a glance. We are some of the oldest in grade, and in age - the top dogs. Not only that, but we are the weird ones. I may not recognise my own reputation, but I grant hesitance before approach. I have seen it in the eyes of freshmen and above, even in my own grade. Chara is in a whole different world of popularity than me - she is labeled the insane one (which I think ironic because we all hold our own monsters inside our heads. She is just the only one who lets them show). No one will approach Chara, and I find that understandable. Even reasonable.

However, I am not concerned with blocking traffic, or who I am to everyone, but at the suggestion pushed onto me in the very early morning. (She always has something to say whenever I walk inside, and sometimes I cannot keep up because of the distraction of eye crust from sleep that had escaped my notice when I first awoke).

There is the cheshire smile brushed onto her expression and I am considering asking what thoughts had brought her into such an insane idea, then I wonder that if I don't she'd tell me anyway.

Nevertheless, I ask, because there has to be a reason, and I have to know it. Whether or not it will be simple and stupid (it always will be because this child is strange and always chasing at stray ideas like a stereotypical dog to a car's bumper).

"Why?" It's a simple three letter word, but it can be misunderstood easily. Despite my simple question, unconsciously I am asking two. A silent doubt and confusion.

The first one is the most obvious, ' _Why are you interested in going into a holding camp filled with beings that are beyond our understanding? One that could potentially be empty and a lie so to direct the public's attention away from the restless fight between the Factions?' A breather from the tense clench of cautious diction behind locked teeth, fingernails puncturing blood from underneath white knuckles, and flamed eyes, staring down over upturned noses._

The other is subdued, puzzled, and skeptical, ' _Why take me along? What sort of entertainment am I to you?'_

I have a fleeting fear that she may be able to hear the quieter one, and it is a real fear on account of her strange ability to see the unseen. I am not weak, or superstitial; I am simply realistic.

A shrug is her response, and I find it answers both of my questions.

Her deep red eyes glide back onto mine and she asks again if I would like to come along on an adventure.

I say sure, because I am bored (the world is all the same, everything has been discovered or left to be ignored. There is no more beauty left), and because I am not afraid of punishments or death.

Maybe I should have been. However, this body and mind I have is close to empty, and with blind eyes it is easy to ignore blaring orange warning signs that litter the sides of a road.

. . .

The nights of summer show when it is after nine and still there are specks of orange light lingering in the faraway clouds. We are suited up, for me a dark overbearing jacket whilst Chara had found some sort of cloak. We take a moment to stare at each other, easily noticing our getups were strange on either person. She snickers at me. I don't laugh, but there is something funny about children attempting to sneak into a government-secure camp and expecting not to get caught.

Moving swiftly through the forest that hugged the edge of the mountain, I keep my eyes trained on the flowing cloak ahead of me. Though I may live next to the woods, I am not familiar with it. I have never spent my extra time in meandering around it and looking for hidden things like so many of our past generation kids once upon a time. However, it is obvious after only a few minutes of the start of our little illegal scheme that she _is_ , and perhaps the fact is made more clear when she has yet to pull out some sort of map. As the time crawls on I wonder if this is truly the first time she has come to check out the camp, or perhaps she has already scoured it and wants to come back, but this time she decides to bring me, possibly just for the entertainment of having someone else experience something you find interesting.

The thought of being a simple add on sparks in my mind, but I find that being anything else would be as false as the friendship between us, so I let it go.

Unfortunately, the trip wasn't as silent as I'd expected. Chara had decided that this espionage treak, trying to remain hidden but going towards a government camp that was _most likely_ better at spying than us, wasn't enough to keep her mouth shut, and proceed to continue to chat back to me like we were out on our regular hangout. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised.

"I wonder how damp and dank it is in the camp," She starts, her pace swift, yet slower than running, and jaunts easily over forest roots. "Maybe it's barren of plant life, like those Japanese internment camps way back when. Gray mud sloshed on the ground, mobile homes and trailers. Or maybe they only have tents and stuff, and lanterns and campfires. Heh, wonder how the monsters are dealing with that."

I glare in the child's back, miffed by how nonchalant they were on the subject. But my tongue is held back, stopped by the memory of the movie night: dead eyes and dead minds. _A world that doesn't care_. Chest strangled with silent shadowed eyes, I let the subject slip from my grasp.

Staring down with blank eyes onto the ground, I watch as time slows down and see my reflection break apart under my feet, sending me into a quick jolt of shock before realizing it was just a puddle. A shadow passes over my eyes as the water source comes and goes in an instant, but it felt like a small eternity.

I tell myself it isn't a sign and to look forward.

For a second, I couldn't tell if my mind had meant looking forward toward a hope for the future, or just keeping a sight on who I was following.

With a grimace twisting up my face, a pitiful smile smeared on like graffiti paint, I break back into the one-sided conversation that Chara was having all to herself. Seems as though she hadn't minded talking to herself, or perhaps she had asked beforehand and I had been occupied. She is strange and patient, or maybe she's fine with the company of only herself.

Uncaring of what she was rambling about now (something about monsters and conspiracies), I broke back with a coarse: "How did you know where the internment camp was. Surely no one would be thick enough to show it on television."

I see and hear her pause, mouth clicking shut audibly from being interrupted. "They didn't, and don't call me Surely." The frank remark forced me to trip on air. I squinted at their back in blatant confusion as I steadied myself, annoyed (and unsurprised) she could tell jokes at a time like this and about a subject like that as well.

Also, that joke was crap.

Exasperated, I burn her back with my stare. In turn for her quick and unhelpful answer, I go in for more information. "What, so you just happened upon them wandering through the forest, moving undetected from possible hidden cameras that the _government_ could have placed? They could be watching us right now, maybe our identities have already been placed and they're already at our homes billing our parents through the roof, and then they're gonna find _us_ and take us back so that our parents can show us we've all been bank robbed out of our homes. Oh, and then we go to juvy, insane _fucker_."

Is what I want to say, but it comes out in a more callous and simple, "Okay."

Chara laughs at me, and I let her so that I can laugh at myself through her voice. _Push over_ , I berate myself, for once annoyed that my fingernails are filed down too low to punch through the skin in my clenched fist.

At this moment, I hope we get caught. A nice punishment for keeping my mouth shut when logically I should've said something.

Abruptly, Chara held up a hand in the symbolic 'halt' like a soldier. Unconsciously, I obey. It's the familiarity of following my mother's own hand signs that control my autopilot, and I carefully slink behind her, eyes lidded and searching.

"It's up here some yard ahead, so we gotta go quieter from now on." Giving her a 'no shit' look to the back of her head for the obvious cautionary quip, they both continue onward at a much slower pace. My eyes slide from both the surroundings to our feet, making sure not to step on anything to create a stir. Though, I'd never practiced sneaking, especially in the woods, so what was I to know about what not to step on besides the stereotypical branch or patch of dry leaves?

"Have you been up there already?" I ask in a hushed voice, knowing I should have asked earlier when silence wasn't needed as much.

Her cape flutters softly and Chara captures it to hold it against her sides. "Kinda. I found it, just to make sure. And I found a possible way in, buuut..." She stretches out the words with a bored tone. "Going in alone is _boring_."

I wait for her reasons on why it's boring and realize that she would say no more, as if it being _boring alone_ was as good a reason.

A small annoyed snarl pulls on my lips. I hate her small responses that she expects it to answer the world and explain everything.

As my chest trembles with my irritation, the vexatious child ahead of me stops and my eyes shift upwards to catch a tall fence, no color except for the dull material of white plastic and intertwined metal, linked with steel spikes of circles above so to discourage the idea of climbing. It looks temporary, as flimsy as the fence was propped up, and a glint of curiousity gleams in my eyes. Unable to resist the lure of finding out what is on the other side.

Chara turns back to me, a triumphant grin of teeth refracting the moon's light through the filters of the tree leaves. "Told you." She says mockingly sweet, probably just to get on my nerves once more.

And it works, I am unable to hide the distaste off my face from her words.

She cackled quietly, eyes rimmed like a sideways crescent, and shifts back around, now moving along and keeping to the cover of the woodland. My steps follows hers as the red eyed menace glances around, looking for something along the edges that we prowled. Then I hear a huff of delight from her and I know she has found whatever it is that she was been searching for.

With a slight prance in her pace, the enigmatic child wanders over to a tall fir tree, its branches thick and matured whilst also grown closer to the ground. A flash of understanding flies through my mind, however, this child is not so simple, it is always hard to figure out what she is thinking.

Even though the thought plagues my mind, I ask to clarify with a lowered tone, "Are we going to climb the tree to get over? Wouldn't that be too obvious from the other side?" _What if we couldn't see through the thick pine needles and dropped down to be discovered? Better yet, what if we drop down, and cant get back up?_ Concerned about my last though, I raise that up as well. "How will we get back up?"

She turns back towards me, her cloak twirling along with her movements. Somehow, she seems more mysterious than before.

Her eyes smile, gleaming with hidden knowledge. "We'll get one of the monsters inside to help us back up, of course."

My eyebrow twitches. "...Are you joking?" I ask this anyway, though knowing that she hasn't lied to me before, and I can tell that she is somewhat serious about this. I just futilely hoped that she was simply being a pest and had a better plan in mind.

The red eyed child just smiles and turns away from me, gripping hold of the tree's low branches, as thick as a fist, and starts to haul herself up without so much as a grunt of exertion, too wrapped around her own excitement and glee I suppose.

I stare at her back which gets slowly higher every second, the lid of my right eye twitching with annoyance and aggravation. _Only her,_ I think as a stream of spite runs through my veins, _only she could anger me and make me contemplate murder._

In spite of that, I climb up after her as well, with only the furrow of my brows and a snarl maaring my mouth to show my displeasure. I hated her, and yet I did not want to leave.

Perhaps that was my mistake.


End file.
